Screaming Ban Shes

Why Portland’s gay bars won’t ban bachelorettes.

It’s the last show at Darcelle XV Showplace on a muggy
Friday night. The audience is a mixed bag: a birthday party in the
center, friends of a drag queen near the wall, a posse of bros in the
back.

In the front row is
the only bachelorette in the house. It’s an unusually poor turnout for
Darcelle. The bachelorette’s name is Lindsay, and she’s from Salem.
She’s flanked by eight friends. Their fresh manicures and flat-ironed
hair say this night is special.

Bachelorette parties
have a bad rap at gay bars, and justifiably so. As a gay man in a gay
bar, nothing is more aggravating than a bunch of screaming banshees
clogging the drink line and manhandling you on the dance floor. And
celebrating a wedding someplace populated by people who can’t get
married is insensitive, at best. So when West Hollywood’s popular bar
the Abbey banned bachelorette parties last month and encouraged other
gay bars to do the same, there was delighted approval around the globe.

But so far, no
Portland gay bar has followed the Abbey’s example. The bars have their
reasons, most of which should come as no surprise in a city which frowns
on exclusionary action.

At
Darcelle, bachelorette Lindsey sits quietly throughout the show, back
slouched and chin up, balancing her tiny bridal tiara. Lindsay is a
short, mousy girl with small glasses and shoulder-length red hair. She
cheers sheepishly for the drag queens, showing the most enthusiasm for
the Liza Minnelli act. When the show ends, she’s called onstage for her
congratulatory Champagne. She giggles a lot.

Bachelorettes
like Lindsay make up most of Darcelle’s business, and Darcelle has no
intention of banning them. As show coordinator Summer Seasons puts it,
doing so would be “absolutely ridiculous.”

But Darcelle isn’t
necessarily a gay bar, per se. It’s more of a drag cabaret. And though
co-owner Darcelle and his partner, Roxy Newhardt, are gay, and drag is a
linchpin of gay culture, Darcelle bills itself as an “all-inclusive
establishment.”

Still, Darcelle is
where the bachelorette madness begins. On a typical night, the women
come for the show and stay for the male strippers at midnight. If they
continue the gay-bar wedding march, they stumble next door to CC
Slaughters and down Southwest 3rd Avenue to Silverado.

Neither CC nor
Silverado ban bachelorette parties, though CC has considered a ban and
Silverado has banned them in the past. The trouble with banning
bachelorette parties is that such parties are rather loosely defined.

For CC, it all comes
down to costumes (read: penis necklaces and straws). CC has considered
banning groups in costume, says Steven Fosnaugh, the bar’s marketing
director, but no decision has been made.

“CC Slaughters is a non-discriminatory business,” says Fosnaugh. “If we ban one costumed group, we’d have to ban them all.”

Silverado until
recently had a sign at its entrance that stated “No Bachelorette
Parties.” But the bar removed it under legal advice, just as it now
charges men and women the same $4 cover despite priding itself as a “gay
men’s bar.”

Of course, not all
bachelorettes flounce around gay bars on their special night. Lindsay,
for one, doesn’t even want to stay for the strippers at Darcelle. But
Lindsay doesn’t speak for every bride-to-be in Old Town.

Enter Megan. Megan
went to an earlier show at Darcelle, but returns to leap onstage for
what she thinks will be her second Champagne toast. Clearly inebriated
and wearing impossibly tiny white shorts, Megan is shooed off the stage.
As the crowd files out and the strippers come on, Megan is one of the
few in the front row. She later corners a stripper to take issue with
his sense of equity. “I took a shot off you,” she argues. “You have to
take a shot off me!”

Meanwhile, Lindsay
and her friends gather outside. It’s raining now, and they caucus about
their next steps. Dixie Tavern? No, bad idea. They walk toward their
car.

Lindsay’s friend
Chrystal hangs back. It was Chrystal’s idea to bring Lindsay to
Darcelle. Chrystal is aware of the bachelorette-party backlash, and
wholeheartedly disagrees. Chrystal is a lesbian—her girlfriend, Carlie,
was at the show with her—and she’d like to be married one day.

“Why ban something that you’re working toward?” she asks. “You can’t be closed-minded.”